With my hand on the wheel and my brain in neutral . . .

Posts tagged ‘rainy day’

The day after Halloween was rainy, chilly, and increasingly windy, so I hid from the world and stayed inside my boat, morning till night. I kept plenty busy, sitting at my dinette, working on my laptop, offline here and all over the world via the Internet. There’s a porthole right next to my head, so with just a glance I could check the progression of raindrops sliding down the plexiglass and scan half the marina.

I had an electric oil-filled radiant heater near my feet, turned on but dialed down low, just enough to take the chill out of the air and scare back the invading dampness. In the morning as I typed on the keyboard between my forearms I had hot mugs of coffee, and late in the afternoon I had a steaming mug of chicken broth. And, of course, I had cookies, morning and afternoon. I’ve heard that the Irish call this kind of day a “cozy day.”

In between, after lunch, I was irresistibly drawn to my bunk for a Barometric Nap (per the Napa Sutra on Napism.Info.) I fell asleep easily, with the rain pattering hypnotically on the deck just two feet above my head. The boat was rocking in the wind, tugging on the dock lines, occasionally bucking a little against the gusts. That’s a wonderful feeling, sensing the solidity of the boat floating on the water, my little piece of solid reality safe against the weather, safe among the unknowable and ever-changing watery realities of the world . . .

I woke up gradually, stalled for a few moments in that amazing, delicious phase of sleep half-way in dreamland. You haven’t yet regained your kinesthetic sense – you don’t feel the position of your limbs; you’re mostly disconnected from your body – and all you sense physically is luxurious warmth and complete comfort, and your thoughts are still just images connected in random and silly, amusing ways, dream-style, and – here’s the best part – you don’t want anything, not a damn single thing.